Town Centre memories

Howardsgate

By Elaine Spooner

Howardsgate

Welwyn Garden City Library

Howardsgate shops

At the bottom of Howardsgate there was a large furniture company, William Perring. Then there was Brickwall Nurseries – they are still there now. Next to them was Carnills the haberdashery store, then the Eastern Electric Showrooms – we always paid our electricity bill there.

Right on the end was Boots before they moved into the Howard Centre. On the other side was W H Smith. I can’t remember the shops further along.

Out of the picture, by the railway station was Woolworths. You went around the side of Woolworths into the bus station. The police station was originally on Stonehills – thats the big patch of ground by what is now Debenhams.

War Memorial

The green area in the picture is still there and the war memorial has been moved onto it. It was originally on Hatfield Hyde on Hollybush Lane.

The road going to the right in front of the Co-op (in between Smiths and Boots in the picture) has now been pedestrianised. You wouldn’t be able to park on this road so easily now!

This page was added on 11/05/2009.

Comments about this page

Great shame WGC lost its old station building unlike Letchworth. Anyone remember the large Finefare on opposite corner to the shoe shop (FHW?), the Readicut shop & a shortlived Spud-u-like on Howardsgate.

There was on the town side of hunters bridge which I am told was made by Dawneys the steps to the station masters house then Jenner Parsons Garage at the end of the bridge opposite the bowling Green of the Cherry Tree then came Munts with the big stove pipe stove for heating next was Welwyn Printers and after that Fretherne Road was fields until the station building next to the station was Snows Taxis and then more fields before the houses in longcroft lane the only building on the other side was the white Police Station nothing more until the bottom of Howardsgate in Howard’s Gate in before the gap in the shops was the CooP Butchers and then the CooP grocery store there was then a dead end from Church Road with an entry to the CooP Dairy on the other side was the post office and Barclays Bank a foot path to parkway and a gap before Welwyn Stores the addition of the part extending to Welwyn Theatre is modern Welwyn stores had its own car parks where the roundabout is today the air rade sirens were on top of the fire station and another at woodhall they were also the fire alarms to call out the crew they were tested at 1pm every Wednesday the fountain was put in for the Coronation along with a boating pool in St George’s playing field by public donations in wooden buildings behind the council offices which were a fraction of the size that they are today in sherards wood which extended to Welwyn stores my mother used to que to obtain bottles of orange juice and bottles of cod liver oil other mothers obtained National Dried Milk there in the middle of Dawneys yard was a government warehouse containing emergency supplies during the war the street lamps were Green posts furnished with a 60 watt bulb at junctions and a 25 watt bulb between the ends Dame Flora Robson lived in Knella Road and worked at the Shredded Wheat factory when not making films Dinah Sheridan (mother of the Railway Children) lived in Parkway and went to Sherards Park School her parents owned Studio Lisa and were the Queens Photographer’s this has returned to me many treasured memories

My first job at age 16 was as a bank clerk at the Midland Bank on Howardsgate in 1961. The other of the big five banks of the time were either on or near Howardsgate. They were Lloyds, Barclays, Westminster and National Provincial. We had to exchange each others’ checks deposited, by hand carrying them, courier fashion. Our big famous customer was then millionaire, Garfield Weston who owned Fine Fare supermarkets. When he came to the bank, we all had to clean up the place for his grand entrance, My family and I emigrated to the US in 1963 and have lived there ever since. I am now 73.

Before it was a Chinese restaurant it was the Coffee Pot as teenagers in the Late 50’s early 60’s we used to all go there to listen to the Juke Box, Past the Gas Showroom and Betsy’s used to be Underwoods Hardware store, there was also Pritchards Sweet Shop, and Lilley and Skinners Shoe Shop, does anyone remember the name of the record shops, I also remember Ivy Farley’s Hairdressers by the station she had a Bassett Hound and it used to lay on the road stopping the traffic and you had 2 portacabins by the station on sold papers and the other was a cafe and I think one was a Taxi Office

There were many shops I remember on Howardsgate. There was the three banks: Lloyds (which was on the corner of the Stonehills junction), Midland Bank and Halifax. Cresta Silks moved there in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and W H Smith which sold amazing toys. Woolworth’s moved to next to the railway station in the early 60s, and I bought my 10d Kodak cameras there. There was the tobacco & confectionary shop, the footwear shop and W J Elliott Ltd (the music shop). I used to go get the photos printed at Boots from my camera on a Saturday. Oh the memories just override my brain.

So the one and only chinese restaurant in WGC circa 1970 (apart from the restaurant in the Welwyn Department Stores) was called ‘Wing On’ ok Simon thanks i wondered what it was called i vaguely remember seeing it a few times tucked away around the back of the Wigmores south area, it was a bit of a conservative looking place by todays modern standards with white’ish full-length net curtains covering all the windows. Yes we tend to forget something like a chinese takeaway meal was quite an ‘exotic food event’ to have back in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Does anyone recall how quiet the town centre use to be during the 1970s after 6:30pm on a weekday or at weekends?. In the town centre I recall that there use to be a Chinese restaurant & takeaway in the area of Wigmores south but I can’t recall the name of this establishment over 40 years on?, it was possibly the only restaurant in the town centre at that time apart from the ‘Parkway restaurant’ in the Welwyn Department stores during the 1960s & 1970s?. Also I recall a fella in his mid/late 50s who owned a mobile Hamburger van that use to pitch up in the open car park area near to where the multi-storey car park was built (opposite the Cherry Tree in 1974) on most evenings back around 1972/73 I wonder whatever became of him?.

I had a regular holiday job for some years at WH Smith in the late’Fifties and early ‘Sixties. The name of the manager escapes me at the moment (old age!) but I recall his habitual parting comment to satisfied customers: “Service with a leer.” I was working there on the day that Lady Chatterley’s Lover was released. I certainly don’t recall a busier day!

Does anyone know what happened to the signboard for W H Smiths? I remember a paper boy, striding out with his bag over his shoulder, flat cap on his head and holding a newspaper aloft. A very 1940’s bit of design. Is my recollection at all accurate, I wonder.

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